Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Monday September 28, 2009 @11:04AM
from the something-to-think-about dept.

selven wrote in with something a bit offtopic for Slashdot, but I figured it's worth a discussion today. He writes "Following Iran's revelation regarding its secret nuclear enrichment plant, western leaders are banding together against it, saying that it violates Articles 2 and 3 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and suggesting serious sanctions against the country if it refuses to back down on its uranium enrichment program. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only and that it's not fair for the US to be criticizing them in this way while having thousands of nuclear warheads."

Hebrew is like Arabic - they are roughly as close as German and Danish, or Provencal Occitan and Catalan.

Neither Arabic nor Hebrew possess written vowels beyond Alif, with places and stresses for these accomplished through an elaborate system of diacritical punctuation. This is more stressed in Arabic, where the replecation of the exact tonal and accent production is regarded as protecting Koranic recitation from "innovation".

Probably because someone thinks pointing out the double-standard for Israel is un-american or something. Anyway, the idea of sanctions is doomed unless the US can get both Russia and China to go along with them. China because (major reason) it has a permanent seat on the UN security council and can veto any sanction request and (minor reason) they can hit back at the US if they ever wish to by engaging in mildly self-harming trade war with the USA (which they own a lot of thanks to government borrowing and so can dump US dollars). Russia because it has a similar veto right and (especially) because if it wants to it has enough reserve capacity to fuel the whole of Iran and can provide it by (in order of convenience) rail, Caspian sea or road.

Anyway, the GP is right to bring Israel into this. One of the big pressures on the USA (I suppose THE pressure) is that Israel is threatening to initiate bombing raids on Iran if they aren't satisfied with it reigning in its technological progress. Israel is confident that the US would back it up in any action (indeed, Israeli bombers would need to pass over US controlled airspace to carry out the attacks as I understand it, which would make the US complicit even if it didn't supply military aid beyond the tech and money over previous years).

What the inner government of Iran thinks privately I don't think many people really know. It's quite possible that they think Israel wouldn't be stupid enough to start a war which would drag the whole region down in flames. There has to be some doubt in their minds about that - after all this is Israel - but publically, they're not showing much willingness to roll over for US demands.

At anyrate, the US will have to pay quite the price to Russia to get it to help with sanctions (after all, Russia is fine with Iran, though they probably don't want to see it nuclear-capable). The US has already backed down on Ballistic Missile Defence (alienating Poland and the Czech republic who were supposed to be hosting two of the bases, incidentally), but BMD was an over-priced failing project anyway and Medvedev pretty much said that Russia just considered withdrawing it merely a return to the negotiating table. If the US wants sanctions against Iran, other people will probably be paying the price - that will be the US giving in on pushing for greater control of Georgia and the Ukraine (or from a certain point of view, throwing them to the Bears).

If Iran is a lot closer to creating nukes (it would make sense that they are trying to do so - so would you if you were threatened by two nuclear powers - but nobody's shown any good evidence that they are)... if Iran is a lot closer to creating nukes than we think and US or Russian Intelligence know this then perhaps Russia will be more amenable to sanctions. But if Iran is not near to having nuclear weapons as everyone appears to think, then Russia's only going to help at a big old cost of some kind. After all, they hold a bargaining chip that could stave off US involvement in a long-term and very destructive war.

So that's more or less how I see sanctions and the cost of them if they come about. If we do get sanctions then (a) a lot of Iranian people will probably suffer in the same way that the Iraqi people suffered when that country was put under sanctions during Saddam's regime; (b) moderate elements in Iran (e.g. Moussavi's former supporters) will become hardline elements in droves strengthening Ahmadinijad enormously; (c) Iran will probably mine oil shipping routes causing a massive interruption in international oil supplies.

If we don't get sanctions, then we have to hope that either Iran gets nuclear weapons and everyone has to accept it and play more nicely in future, or that Israel isn't willing to plunge the whole region into a great bloody struggle. If they do, then Russia will probably sell Iran some more modern weaponry (they've been turning Iran down for years) because they see no reason why the US and Israel should be attacking a fairly non-aggressive country next door to them.

Which its leaders have said they will use against Israel to wipe them out. Israel is the only nation on earth in existence today, against which other nations or governments have made threats of extermination. Israel's enemies have attempted to do this since its rebirth in 1948. Every attempt so far has failed and will continue to fail, because ancient prophecies from thousands of years ago say that Israel will again be a nation which will never again be destroyed or cast into exile.

The final war on earth, war of Armageddon will be fought over Jerusalem. The valley of Megiddo, north of Jerusalem will be the battleground of the final war of humanity, ushering in the personal rule of Jesus Christ on this planet. We are told that soldiers from EVERY nation on earth will be involved there.

Let me add to your comments by saying that the elephant in the room is that the non-proliferation treaty is basically a joke.

The idea was, get all the non-nuclear powers (or most anyway) agree not to develop nuclear weapons. In exchange, the "big 5" will help them with the very much non-trivial engineering challenges of getting nuclear power up and running. And the nuclear powers agree to give up their nukes.

It simply isn't possible to have a "grown-up conversation" about nukes while the 'big 5' are implicitly advocating one set of rules for them and one set of rules for the rest of the world.

It's better for all to have a non-nuclear-armed world. But if nukes are in play, then the rational strategy for any given state is to maintain "minimum deterrence" - just barely enough nukes to make it undesirable for somebody else to nuke us, and not a single dollar more.

Charles de Gaulle had a line about "no country without nuclear weapons could ever be considered to be fully independent."

The traditional strategy of the great powers of the day was to either bribe or coerce countries to sticking to their NPT obligations.

But you can't do either with Iran. They have oil, so they have enough money. They can close the straight of Hormuz, so you can't treat them like Iraq.

So, there's only one way to get Iran to not work on nukes - you have to actually convince them using, wait for it, rational arguments.

I realize this is a new one for great powers. Using force is attractive because it works. But it's not viable here.

So if the argument they wanna use on Iran is "we get to have nukes and you don't, because, um, because we're special or something" that's not gonna fly.

The only way to convince non-nuclear powers to stay that way is for nuclear powers to become non-nuclear powers.

Uhhh....ever read up on The Six Day War [wikipedia.org]? Israel has been stirring up shit with its neighbors for DECADES because it knows the USA will always be there to cover its ass if the excrement hits the cooling device.

Allow me to quote the former defense minister Moshe Dayan "After all, I know how at least 80 percent of the clashes there started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let's talk about 80 percent. It went this way: We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was. I did that, and Laskov and Chara did that, and Yitzhak did that, but it seemed to me that the person who most enjoyed these games was Dado."

That BTW wasn't something made up by some Arab, the man bragged about it in his book. So I don't honestly see how you can describe any of the players in the region as "responsible" as BOTH sides have been major asshats, only IMHO Israel has gotten extra assholey thanks to having big daddy USA backing them up and selling them really nice hardware. Oh and you might want to know that even with our economy in the shitter we are sending them ultra fatty checks to the tune of $7,000,000 A DAY [ifamericansknew.org]! Frankly as long as we are running deficits we shouldn't be sending jack shit to anybody, especially when the country we are sending it to is gonna use it to act like douches. We need to quit propping up these countries and stay the hell out of everybody's business and mind our own, sadly something we haven't done since before WWII.

That reminds me of something my father once told me/stands on soapbox with hat over heart and rebel flag flying patriotically/ he said "Son, there ain't no point in being a racist. Most folks are total assholes and will gladly give you a reason to hate them personally!"

But I have to wonder how much of the middle east bullshit is either directly on indirectly caused by Israel knowing they have so much power in the US congress thanks to right wing bible thumpers that don't give a crap what Israel does as long as it stands so "Jebus can come back! ALL PRAISE JEBUS!". It is pretty fucking sad to have a superpower's mideast policy based on whether or not a guy that has been dead a couple of thousand years can float down upon his fluffy white cloud, but sadly talking to many of the most pro Israel right wingers at the local college that is pretty much what it comes down to. And sadly these nutballs will end up in the halls of power, as we are talking old money multi-generation power brokers.

I have NO problem with folks believing in whatever deity they want, be it Jesus, Buddha or the FSM. But basing a countries foreign policy on 2000+ year old scribblings on goat skins is more than a little nuts. Is it any wonder the Arabs act like we are still doing the crusades when Israel can do pretty much anything it wants and the right wingers will jump on board to keep from pissing off the "Praise Jebus!" brigade? I don't know how many sermons over the years I have heard here in the south that say no matter what we have to stand with Israel so that Jesus can come back. Like anybody that could rise from the grave after 2000+ years is gonna need the US Military to cover their ass.

And the US funds Israel which recently killed 1600 civilians using white phosphorus supplied by the US. This was also in violation of international treaties just like Iran's Nuclear ambitions. When Israel developed their nuclear weapons they violated the same treaty as Iran.

I am not saying I am happy with Iran having nukes, but I am also not happy with Israel having them. Especially when Israel are just as likely to use them. The problem for us is the that if Israel use them against their neighbours, then Russia will be unhappy and may just retaliate against us since we are supporting the country financially and militarily.

Lets not forget that both countries are built on religion and religion has caused too many wars already. Both countries also are moving away from democracy, Iran by rigging elections, and Israel by intimidating non-jewish citizens who try and vote. Both have an armed forces that is becoming more fanatical in the use of embedded religious teachers in with the troops. This is why we should have acted more strongly against Israel when they developed theirs, we set a precedent that we would ignore people breaching the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty if we like the country that was breaching it. This makes it much harder for countries breaching it now to take it seriously when they feel threatened by nuclear equipped neighbours.

We can try and enforce our will by military means alone, but this is a dangerous path since it results in us having to keep our armed forces in place all over the world to enforce our will against the will of the indigenous population. That is certainly not what the founding fathers of the US had in mind when they drew up the constitution.

I'm a bit confused about the concept of "fairness" in this context. Do we allow anyone who wants to have nuclear weapons the option to acquire them because there's some natural "fairness" law? Only a cretin would say so. The way it works is if you're a threat to us, or a region containing friends of ours, then we don't want you to have them (Iran, Syria). If you're an ally, we'd rather you didn't have them but there's not much we can do to stop you acquiring them (India, Pakistan). If you're already strong and powerful, we assure your destruction if you fire them at us (Russia, China).

Consider their history....there have been countless efforts to wipe them off the face of the planet, from back in Biblical times to the Nazi regime. Yet not only are they still around, but they've managed to get their country re-established, in the same location, after not existing for hundreds of years.

The Nazis did not try to destroy Israel, because Israel didn't exist until after the second world war. This fact rather indicates that at least one of the attempts to 'wipe them off the face of the planet' since biblical times worked...

On the other hand Israel has a vested interest in having the bomb so they can use it as a threat in the end game scenario where the Arab world actually successfully teams up against them. There is a lot of speculation that the reason the US intervened in '67 and concocted the camp David accords to pay Israel and Egypt annual sums to avoid war was precisely because US intelligence assets saw Israel prep'ing their nukes for delivery to Cairo during the losing portion (for Israel, 12,000+ casualties is near catastrophic for the IDF). It's speculated that the US emergency equipment airlift was a concession to stop Israel from nuking Cairo (and or using the weapons tactically against the Egyptian tank forces) and the successive Accords were to prevent Egypt and Israel from doing the Tango again.

Ironically it's precisely this accord that got Osama and his Egyptian buddies panties in a bunch because they saw the double wammy of supporting Israel (which up until '67 the US didn't do) and supporting the Egyptian dictator who ordered the torture of many of the Al Queda higher level people before they were evicted from Egypt.

Damned if you do damned if you don't. Had we allowed Israel to go forward with the deployment of Nuclear weapons the damage both direct and indirect would have been catastrophic yet we are blamed for stopping something very very bad from happening. Of course Al Queda has demonstrated to the Arab world their willingness to sacrifice innocent Muslims to their cause and probably would have preferred that Israel use the nuclear weapons and the successive generations of damage the fallout would have caused, let alone the direct casualties.

Are you one of these tossers who actually believes what's written in the bible ? There was NEVER a kingdom of Israel

I know you're being edgy and all, but there's a shitload of archeological evidence, as well as many external documents (Roman, Assyrian, etc.) for the existence of the Kingdom of Israel. Coins, ruins, ancient scrolls, what have you not.

It has nothing to do with the Bible. It's about not being an ignorant ass.

And as for being scared of them - let the arabs off the leash and then see how long they last. Just for fun, tell them if they use nukes the west will nuke them ! See how fucking tough they are then.

Which is exactly what happened in 1948. Not a lick of US aid. No nukes. 6 Arab armies. All beaten within less than a year by people with half-functioning Czech rifles.

The ONLY reason the israelis are still in one piece is because of the USA. They gave them nukes, they send them money

The nukes are French, the massive aid only started after 1973, and Egypt gets almost as much... why I do even bother? You obviously don't know what you're talking about.

Israel got their nukes from the US. The material was siphoned off a bit at a time, every time nuclear material was moved from one location in the US to another. The record-keeping system was designed to automatically experience some "shrinkage" every time material was moved. This came out when someone noted that just moving material from one side of a storage are to another changed its' reported quantity in inventory. Look through Scientific American's archives from (iirc) the early 80s (but it could be the '70s).

If you prove to the world that you are an idiot and want to eliminate other countries, you don't get nukes. Iran has proven this. Israel just wants to exist as it is and has proven this. A portion of the Muslim world is just too radical!

The *point* of nuclear weaponry *is* MAD. If we consider you a threat, and you don't have them--then you're by definition pretty much powerless to stop us. We do have the largest, best equipped and funded military in the world.

Telling Iran we don't want them to have nuclear weaponry is pretty much proof positive of our intent to attack them if we don't get our way at some point. Otherwise--it presumably doesn't matter, since there is such abso

You are talking about a country run by people who have repeatedly stated that it is the duty of all muslims to work towards being in a position to start Armageddon (or Ragnarok, basically the apocalyptic battle at the end of the world). In addition to these statements, they have also expressed their own desire to trigger said battle.

Exactly how does MAD deter people who wish to start an end of the world battle?

By deterring the majority of rational people who don't wish to start the end days. It should be noted that the same concerns have been expressed about evangelical Christians in the USA who want to bring about the end days [wikipedia.org]. e.g. the Concerned Christians [bbc.co.uk] who planned terrorist attacks in Israel to try and start Armageddon. These people believe that they must destroy the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem so that Jesus can return. Some of them finance settlers because they believe this is the quickest way to start a war between the Arabs and Jews that will lead to Jesus returning. Many religions prophesize the End days, and there are a minority of followers in all of those religions who want the war to start so the Saviour will return and take them to Heaven. Hopefully, the rational people will prevail.

The way it works is if you're a threat to us, or a region containing friends of ours, then we don't want you to have them (Iran, Syria).

Who's "us"*, and why should Iran or Syria give a damn what we think? Try not to forget here that Iran is at the end of the day a sovereign nation of over 70 million people, and owes the west little and less. Saying that the Iranians are somehow not entitled to nuclear weapons by default, or have to be "allowed" to develop them, is as baseless as applying the concept of "fai

Trouble is, this is a country run by crazy religious zealots, that quote their religion when they blow stuff up. The powers that be over there, can't be trusted to 'play nice' with their nukes. They would be very likely to start shooting them off unprovoked.

As long as the US has nuclear weapons, Iran will have a legitimate reason to develop its own nuclear weapons. That is, to protect against American aggression.

The best way to avoid war with Iran is to disarm, pull our forces out of the region, and open trade with them. We need to help develop their middle class, show that we are not a threat, and give them a business interest in becoming more moderate.

As long as the US has nuclear weapons, Iran will have a legitimate reason to develop its own nuclear weapons. That is, to protect against American aggression.

The best way to avoid war with Iran is to disarm, pull our forces out of the region, and open trade with them. We need to help develop their middle class, show that we are not a threat, and give them a business interest in becoming more moderate.

If you're an ally, we'd rather you didn't have them but there's not much we can do to stop you acquiring them (India, Pakistan).

What? Pakistan was an ally when it acquired nukes? You may not remember this, but the press was pushing the same stories when Pakistan was busy acquiring the bomb as they do now with Iran. There was massive international condemnation. The same voices were banging on about the "dangers of an Islamic nuke". There were the same stories about Dr. AQ Khan and an underground nuclear black market smuggling network putting the world at risk of nuclear war. The same stories about the dangers of terrorists acquiring those nuclear weapons and using them on Israel or other Western friendly countries. The same voices calling for preemptive military strikes to stop all this happening.

This isn't American propaganda. All this is saying is if Russia or China fires on us, we have enough nukes to fire back ensuring that both parties are wiped out. It is base purely on the nuclear arsenal and not military might per se.
So chill the fuck out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction [wikipedia.org]

In a nuclear war, America is the only state capable of defeating China or Russia.

Unless your mythical strategic defence shield is now working and the propaganda machine hasn't started working yet, this is false. In a nuclear war, America is not capable of defeating China or Russia, it is capable of ensuring that both sides lose. Putting China and Russia in the same category is a bit odd, as both France and the UK have more nuclear warheads than China but an order of magnitude fewer than Russia. Both have enough to destroy every major city in Russia or China, even accounting for some missiles being intercepted.

Seriously, right now the US is fighting wars in 2 theaters and is limited by the will of the politicians in power. If American soil were occupied or under imminent threat of occupation, I don't think the politicians would 1) worry about popularity of the upcoming war poll numbers 2) need to worry about said poll numbers. Americans would band together, at least for a while, to expel and destroy with prejudice an occupying force just so we could get back down to the business of our own politics without outside influence.

Overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran was NOT in the best interests of any nation. It WAS in the best interests of British Petroleum. Let us be honest here: a democratic government was thrown under the bus for the sake of money, nothing more, and nothing less.

Ironically, the best way to destabilize a ponderous, oppressive government such as Iran's is to ensure the growth of a strong middle class in the target country with an educated and politically active youth. Sanctions tend to do the opposite by denying (or reducing) a country's access to trade, economic growth, pharmaceuticals and health benefits, knowledge and innovation. It stigmatizes countries' populations against the world, which often entrenches hard-line governments with staunch supporters. Sanctions also reduce positive effect of the global community's political feedback: if a country is already a pariah, their leaders have little incentive to conform to accepted norms (e.g. human rights).

That's not to say that sanctions are never appropriate. It's just an observation on their effect.

The US is too busy destroying the middle class in their own country to worry about supporting the growth of it in another. All this warmongering is just an excuse to start up more intervention in the Middle East. What's surprising is even/. is joining in with the MSM to try to whip up support for more military action. The irony being that all this is occurring under a president that won a significant number of votes by appealing to people that wanted a less interventionist government.

Define "everyone," because I can think of some pretty scary scenarios in which "everyone" has nukes.

Everyone. Everybody should get one. I'll keep my nuke in my living room and put a round glass top over it and use it as a coffee table. It'll be a good conversation piece. Oh, what's that? You have a headache and some clumps of hair are falling out of your head? No worry, lets move out onto the patio where I keep my smallpox vials...

When there's at least one "superpower" in charge, things are pretty chill.

When the "superpower" falls you don't get utopia, you get a warring states period.

People are selfish, short sighted, greedy bastards. The "superpower" isn't more enlightened, they just know that it is in their best interest (and they have self preservation as one of those interests) to have some restraint and civility. Get into a warring states situation and it's every bastard for themselves in a no-holds-barred deathmatch.

I've said the same. Sometimes it's GOOD to have an 800 pound gorilla on the playground -- ready, willing, and able to knock heads together if the little boys get into a fistfight.

The problem with southwest Asia (and post-imperial Africa, for that matter) is that there are dozens of disparate cultures that all hate each other, and there ISN'T any 800 pound gorilla, so *everyone* feels free to swagger around, beat their chests, and try to bully their neighbours.

India is as solid as it is because its former dozen warring states (remember, it was not always a single country) got head-banged by the Brits during the Imperial era -- if that job had been finished, rather than abandoned as the British Empire fell apart, we might not have today's conflicts, or at least they'd be on a smaller scale. Witness that South America had an essentially enforced uniculture mainly courtesy of Spain, and considering its size has been relatively trouble-free (compared to Asia and Africa).

It's politically incorrect to say this, but.... Imperialism may be "evil" if your small state is the loser, but in the long view it appears to stop more trouble than it causes.

If you're being invaded and use nukes, wouldn't that mean you're nuking your own country? And if the invader's country is across the World, without an intercontinental delivery system, your only option is to threaten said invader's allies that may be near you. Then the allies only alternative is to protect itself and do a first strike on the nuclear plants.

If Iran proceeds with this, they are basically demanding Israel attack them, possibly with their own nuclear weapons.

Iran is playing a very dangerous game. Let's hope the Obama Administration is much more skillful than the previous administration.

Let's hope the Obama Administration is much more skillful than the previous administration.

I think we're already seeing the beginnings of a more deft and subtle foreign policy. I don't believe it's a coincidence that Obama abandoned the idea of European missile defence (which was a serious thorn in the side of the Russians), and we suddenly hear Russia talking about serious sanctions against Iran.

Completely agree with you. If I put on the "I rule Iran" hat and saw one neighbor after another getting invaded I'd be trying to build a defense to deter any future attacks. Now when the attacker has technology and means beyond what I can defend against then the next logical step is getting nukes. Else the only other option is do whatever the attacker tells me no matter what and pray I don;t get invaded.

There's a PhD on a mailing list that I get, who spent most of his career in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. One day we got to talking about the Aswan dam (he was there when that project was initiated) and he said that it had nothing to do with Egypt needing the dam; in fact it was quite thoroughly pointed out to TPTB that halting the seasonal floods would RUIN Egypt's delta ecology and fishing/ag delta economy (which it has). But TPTB were determined to have it no matter what, because having a BIG DAM would show the world that Egypt was Just As Modern As Everyone Else. It was essentially a psychological need to keep up with the Joneses, even if it killed them.

I suspect a great deal of the middle-eastern/SW-Asia attitude about nukes is more of the same -- it's a cultural thing where you can't let the other guy show you up by owning something you don't, even if having it will ruin you.

Right, because when someone invades your country you want to be able to nuke them on your own soil?
Oh wait, I know.... It's because the best way to keep from being attacked is to do the biggest thing you can to provoke, and in some peoples minds justify an attack right?

The problem isn't just Iran becoming nuclear armed. There are several other countries (Venezuela comes to mind) that are watching Iran push the international community around and may feel they can do the same exact thing and go down the road of nuclear arming.

I don't trust the countries that DO have nukes to not blow up the planet, let alone the countries that harbor terrorists and put out threats of using them to wipe out another race. Iran must be dealt with.

I'm not an expert, but the news reports seem to indicate that this new facility (at a military base) doesn't have the capacity to produce a useful quantity of enriched fuel for a power plant, but could potentially produce enough for 1-2 bombs per year.

Combine that with the fact that Iran flares enough natural gas daily to more than meet its internal energy generation requirements, pardon me for being a bit skeptical about their motives.

You know,Quadaffi took a different approach and has come out way, way ahead for it. He saw GWB invade Iraq and thought "that nutjob is serious!" Now the libyans have cancelled chemical and nuclear weapons research, stopped funding most terrorists, and are being let into the world community in spite of nutjob's rantings and ravings. Seems that worked pretty well. Iran would be a fucking rich, powerful nation if they gave up on their strategy of funding terrorists everywhere and instead took what the whole rest of the world views as a legitimate approach to becoming a regional and world power.

Different strokes. Quadaffi is playing his games in the middle of fucking nowhere. Libya is not in the middle of a global strategic hot spot. If we let Libya have nukes, then the only card he could have usefully played is to try to sell it to other folks, ala North Korea. That's one strategy, sure, but not one that holds a big interest in Iran.

They want to be a big, perhaps THE big, regional player. Capitulating to the Evil Americans is not the way to do it. Of course, time will tell if going head to head with the rest of the world is the right way, but it's worked so far. We'll see what happens when the Israelis get all bent out of shape and have one of their little air raid practices or if Russia decides to play nice with Obama for some reason or another.

Combine that with the fact that Iran flares enough natural gas daily to more than meet its internal energy generation requirements, pardon me for being a bit skeptical about their motives.

Alternatively, Iran can produce nuclear energy for baseload energy while exporting their hydrocarbons for exports which might make more money. Or they can save their hydrocarbons for future use as oil/gas prices increases in the future. Or they can start now to prepare for the carbon-tax future.

Given the US long history for self-serving military intelligence, pardon me for being a bit skeptical about their motives. Face it, US hates Iran because Iran won't kowtow to the US government.

I'm not an expert, but the news reports seem to indicate that this new facility (at a military base) doesn't have the capacity to produce a useful quantity of enriched fuel for a power plant, but could potentially produce enough for 1-2 bombs per year.

Combine that with the fact that Iran flares enough natural gas daily to more than meet its internal energy generation requirements, pardon me for being a bit skeptical about their motives.

Iran has plentiful natural resources but does not have the capacity to refine it and must import gas. Any type of war and they could easily be cut off of that gas.

This facility hasn't been a secret to intelligence agenices for years. They are making this a big deal now only to justify tough sanctions and possible action against Iran.

Sanctions are essentially an act of war. Clinton's sanctions on Iraq during the 1990's killed over 500,000 children, and many elderly. Albright went on 60 minutes and said that

Clinton's sanctions on Iraq during the 1990's killed over 500,000 children, and many elderly.

That's only because Saddam re-routed the resources to his favored buds. Plenty of resources went into the country, it's just that they were not being distributed evenly. Saddam used the sanctions as an excuse to rid groups he didn't like.

Actually, high ranking UN officials were playing key roles in that "redistribution". Google it. Clinton goes for sanctions through the UN, and the UN guys help Saddam profit from the oil for food program in order to get kickbacks. Bottom line: don't ever trust bureaucracy to do the right thing, and the UN is the biggest bureaucracy on the planet.

Because Israel has been stating for close to 20 years now that if the rest of the world won't deal with Iran, it will. There are current plans, hardware, and military exercises for exactly this purpose, an air attack on Iranian nuclear centers to destroy their ability to produce materials. Iran is producing a nuclear capability to defend itself from the nuclear capable states around it, and Israel is preparing for a strike against Iran because of their outspoken belief that Israel needs to be destroyed. They're both planning, building, and preparing for when one or the other finally pulls the trigger.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_relations [wikipedia.org]

"If you do not begin considering the possibility of maybe one day relatively soon pondering the beginning of the dismantlement of your nuclear program - NOW - you might possibly maybe perhaps one day face SEVERE SANCTIONS ZOMG.

The Inheritance, by David Sanger. A terrific book, I read it from cover to cover in three sittings. It's basically what Obama was sat down and told about the world and global nuclear proliferation and what his options are. It details some fascinating history, esp. around Khan in Pakistan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan) that will be making you shake your fist and say "Khaaaaaaaaaannn!". (He gave the Iranians much of what they needed to build a nuclear program).

Posturing aside, giving the talking heads and think tankers something to chirp about on CNN - the real threat isn't Iran. Pakistan is the threat. Iran has uranium and reactors. They don't have a warhead. Pakistan has LOTS of warheads, and they MAY or MAY NOT meet your definition of "secure". They could very easily go missing, as the programs in place to account in such matters sort of don't work in Pakistan.

Again - the book lays all this out in exacting detail. I recommend the book to everyone.

All this anti-Iran propaganda seems to be coming out at the same time Iran is switching from Dollars to Euros for its oil transactions. Strangely enough, Iraq previously tried this too, just before the 2003 invasion.

Why should some rich Western countries who already have nuclear weapons get together and decide who can enage in nuclear technology them or who can't. I'm proud that my own country despite major political pressure from the West block has completed the contract for building the peaceful Busher nuclear power station and is continuing to engage in peaceful nuclear cooperation with Iran. Iran has never attacked a foreign country, Iran is not ruled by mad suicidal clerics, Iran is a great country of 70 million people with a unique culture, a unuque brand of eastern democracy sometimes not compatible with the West. Yes we need less weapons, we need denuclearization but you current rulers are too in bed with the military-industrial complex, they are powerless, we need more grassroot movements, more conferences and commitees for all peace loving ordinary people from the West and East to come together and learn from each other. CIA has killed Samantha Smith but they will never kill the peace loving spirits of our peoples!

This is an unforgivable affront. Based on the US's debts and balance of trade, the dollar should be junk currency. Its only remaining value is in purchasing oil, and the US cannot allow resource rich countries to wean themselves off of it.

Make no mistake, the US must and will find a casus belli against Iran. The only question (for Iran) is whether they can become a nuclear power before that happens.

Much like in the (somewhat) open stock markets of the world, immediate value is not the only backing for a currency or stock. The largest thing "backing" the value of US currency (and the reason it doesn't collapse like simple analysis would indicate) is the value of American innovation and industry. I know that sounds corny, but it's true. The world puts a lot of value on our future ability to continue being a dominant power in the world through innovation and bleeding-edge industry.

To be honest, I'm rather ambivalent about the constant bickering/fighting/posturing between certain countries and Israel. However, based what I've seen of Israel's reaction to overt threats in the past, I can't imagine that they'll allow this to go on for much longer. I suspect the US has been putting an enormous amount of pressure on them to not conduct an air raid(s) to take out the various facilities. That's not going to be enough to prevent a confrontation for much longer.

Once your country goes nuclear it's a whole new ballgame and it's a game no one can win with the best outcome being a perpetual tie.

If you're in the game and you see some hot-head with nothing to lose trying to join in it is in your and everyone else's interest to not let them in. There are only so many ways to keep them out, at least while being "nice". You ask them to stay out, you tell them to stay out

Nor is the U.S. led and controlled by a radically conservative theocracy with a demonstrated intent to export insurrection with the stated goal of complete domination.

True, however this has only been the case since the beginning of this year.

Agreed on the led, but not on the controlled. We voted out a leader because we didn't like the direction our country was headed. Iran is led by a non-elected religious figure in perpetuity, and attempts to vote in even a new figurehead were met with violent opression.

Boy this is a hard topic to discuss without feeling like you're inadvertently supporting one side or the other.

I'll just preface this by saying this is a topic that has interested me for many years, but especially in light of 9/11, etc. I do not pretend to be any kind of expert on this (who could?)

So:

Source? (other than Fox News, of course)

I was all set to say "how could you have missed all these news quotations saying the he wants to blow up Israel?!?!" But after doing some digging: It turns out that this is the first time I've heard anyone make a genuine distinction between what CNN / FOX / etc. keep quoting and what was actually translated from his original speech:

Our dear Imam (referring to Ayatollah Khomeini) said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world.

Now: I am not supporting this guy (I can't overstate this), nor am I in support of Iran's totalitarian government, but it does appear that the press seem to have reinterpreted his speeches in words that will rile up Western populations.

His argument seems to be a common one from that region:

- Israel is a state and government which he and many others do not recognize, but which Western governments do.- Israel as a state was created by Western governments following WWII and placed in what used to be known as Palestine, thus his (and many others) continuous reference to "occupied Palestine."- He considers the state to be a fiction, and wants the Islamic world to work together to remove that state from the region, essentially returning it to the Palestinians.

I could only find this translation regarding his statements about the Holocaust:

The illegitimate Zionist regime is an outcome of the Holocaust... a political and power-seeking network claimed to be the advocate for one group of the victims, and sought reparations for their blood. [This network] ruled that the survivors of this particular group of victims must receive compensation - and part of this compensation was to establish the Zionist regime in the land of Palestine. On this pretext, they attacked Palestine and, after massacring the [indigenous] people and driving them from their homes, they occupied their homeland and created the Zionist regime - in order to ensure that no regional power would emerge in the Islamic lands except for the West, [because] Islamic civilization and culture have the dynamic potential to threaten their interests, which were based on oppression and thirst for power. These principles and philosophy comprise the Zionist regime.

So again: I don't see in that quote that he's "denying" the holocaust. (And yes: I know it's out of context, and it's from Wikipedia) He's saying that an "outcome of the Holocaust" was that they made these claims for reparation and compensation, and that they achieved this (the creation of Israel within Palestinian land) via less-than-acceptable means.